Tag Archives: Lava Jato

Photo: William Volcov

CLOSE ATTENTION. In article 54 one of the reasons of Interpol withdrawing Tacla Duran from the red alert list: doubts about the conduct of the judge responsible (Moro) sufficient to violate article 2; cooperation can only be given with fundamental rights guaranteed. https://t.co/l3UsvQcs04

Article 2 (1): To ensure and promote the widest possible mutual assistance between all criminal police authorities within the limits of the laws existing in the different countries and in the spirit of the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights

The investigation agency complied with a request from the lawyer and suspended the international red alert against his name since September 2016

Jamil Chade CORRESPONDENT / GENEVER Katna Baran, O Estado de S.Paulo

4 August 2018

Interpol, the international investigation agency, took the lawyer Rodrigo Tacla Duran off the body’s international wanted list. At the request of the defence, the agency suspended the red alert against his name since September 2016 made at the request of Brazilian Justice. Tacla Duran’s defence placed in check the impartiality of Judge Sérgio Moro to judge the case. The argument was the fact that the judge had cited the lawyer during the programme Roda Viva on TV Cultura.

Tacla Duran presented three arguments to Interpol to justify his request that the red alert on his name be withdrawn: his case had been transferred in part from Brazil to Spain, the rights to due legal process in Brazil had not been fulfilled and to complete the case, Spain had rejected his extradition from there.

According to Interpol, Tacla Duran presented “evidence that was easily verifiable from open sources”, that Moro “spoke publicly about him during an interview” about the case, placing the impartiality of the Lava Jato judge in Curitiba under suspicion.

“The Commission then considered that the allegations presented (by Tacla Duran) which, given the behaviour of the judge responsible for his case in Brazil, sufficient doubts had been raised of the fact of a violation of Article 2 of the Interpol Constitution”, the agency indicated in a document obtained by O Estado. Article 2 refers to the need for the institution to promote cooperation between police from different countries, provided the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is respected.

The case makes reference to the interview given by Moro on Roda Viva on the TV Cultura channel on 27th March. As a fugitive in Spain, Duran accused Moro of receiving undue amounts of money through a friend to favour plea bargains in the operation. In the interview on Roda Viva, the judge said he believed it was just an attempt to remove him from the case.

The Interpol Control Commission has been evaluating the case since July. After an evaluation and in consultation with authorities in Brazil and Spain, the newspaper O Estado found that the commission indicated that the elements presented by Tacla Duran were in fact “new” and would have to be considered. According to the agency, such data could have led Interpol to a “different conclusion” about the suspect.

The decision does not mean that Interpol questions the Brazilian judicial system. But it does indicate that an evaluation should be made on each case before maintaining the lawyer’s name on the list. “The Commission notes that the guarantees of Access to Justice, as well as principles of equal treatment before the law, the impartiality of the Judiciary and fundamental rights, such as full and adversarial defence are in fact rooted in the Brazilian Federal Constitution and in the country’s legal system”.

The agency therefore established that the data on Tacla Duran must be “deleted from the Interpol files”. The body also noted that Spanish Justice “did not ask for the alert to be maintained”.

Tacla Duran has lived in Spain ever since the first indications of his involvement in the corruption scheme at Petrobras were revealed by Lava Jato. According to the investigations, the lawyer was an operator for Odebrecht in the payments of bribe monies abroad. Firstly, he was the subject of a preventive arrest warrant in the 36th phase of Lava Jato in November 2016. At the time, Tacla Duran was already out of the country and was not arrested.

He is wanted in a process of investigating crimes such as corruption, money laundering and criminal conspiracy in a scheme involving construction works worth more than R$ 1.8 billion with the Pipe-Rack Consortium at the Rio de Janeiro Petrochemical Complex (Comperj). He is also a defendant in another process, also dismembered, investigating crimes of corruption against Petrobras and an investigation involving concession and highways in Paraná state.

The 13th Court of Curitiba requested the extradition of Tacla Duran to Brazil for crimes, which was denied by Spain due to the lawyer double nationality. On April 11th 2018, Moro decided to transfer part of this process to the Spanish authorities, considering treaty provisions and the use of a company set up in Spain to carry out the crimes investigated.

Interpol refused to comment officially on the document. Federal Justice affirmed that his preventive detention had not been revoked in Brazil. The media office said they would not comment officially on the matter involving Moro, nor on the Interpol decision.

The Federal prosecution service declared that the preventive arrest warrant against Tacla Duran remained in effect and valid. In a motion for habeas corpus filed by the lawyer, the 4th Federal Regional Court (TRF-4) maintained the warrant, recognizing its legality. “The Federal prosecution service continues to adopt all due legal measures for it to be fulfilled, including abroad”.

Source: El País

Gag: the same as muzzle, a cloth or any object put in the mouth to impede someone from speaking or shouting. Using force and coercion to impede someone from speaking. The short and precise dictionary definition shows that the gag is the sister of brutality and the daughter of authoritarianism with intolerance. On June 2, the lawyer Renato Moraes published an article in the newspaper O Globo exposing the harsh reality of a Brazil where Justice has given a bad example of despising the law and the Constitution. The brilliant jurist wrote: “We have arrived at the precipice of authoritarianism. There are those who are shamelessly outlining, the line of thought that between the Constitution and an indistinct will of the people one should side with the people, as if the Constitution were not the sole refuge against authoritarianism”.

In his criticism against so-called judicial populism, Moraes remembers that public opinion is the favourite child of published and media opinion in real time through the mass media. The aggravating: in this time of large scale investigations and exposure of the country’s inner workings, published opinion comes ready packaged from sources such as the Federal Prosecutor’s Office, the police and even from judges. A large part of the media stopped investigating, from ensuring any cross-examination, becoming docile and poisoned channel of communication of those who decided to do justice despite any Constitutional and legal concerns, invoking the application of legal norms voted and passed by the United States Congress.

In this Brazil where first instance judges try to apply US law, where prosecutors rail at Supreme Court judges as if they were in a football stadium, and plea bargains are selective, I suddenly found myself in an unprecedented situation, where I am prohibited from testifying by legal order from judge Sergio Moro. I imagine a situation such as this may have occurred in the Vargas regime or during the military dictatorship, but in a democracy this is inexplicable. Besides being illegal, the prohibition is unjust as it violates the right of defendants to produce witness evidence they judge to be important in their defence. The only two times I was heard and could give my version of certain facts was on November 30th 2017 in the congressional inquiry into JBS and on June 5th 2018 at the Human Rights Commission in Congress. On neither occasion did the Prosecutor’s Office show any interest in the facts I spoke of.

I was heard as a witness by Justice representatives of Peru, Andorra, Switzerland, Argentina, Ecuador, Mexico and Spain. Amongst the direct and indirect consequences of these hearings, one ex-Minister of Ecuador was imprisoned, the President of Peru resigned and Uruguay extradited an ex-member of staff of the BPA Bank to Andorra. All this was widely circulated in the international media. As if nothing of this were pertinent, I continue to be prohibited from speaking to the Justice Department in Brazil. I have never been allowed to testify, despite being called to do so five times by the defence of ex-President Lula.

Recently, Judge Sergio Moro overruled a motion from the defence of Marcelo Odebrecht to hear testimony from the lawyers Monica Odebrecht, his sister, and Mauricio Roberto Carvalho Ferro, brother-in-law. The testimony from the Odebrecht lawyer Marta Pacheco, as a witness for Marcelo, was overruled to respect the prerogative of professional confidentiality. It is quite right that everyone has prerogatives and these should be respected, including professional confidentiality. In this regard there can be no room for differing weights and measures. When I worked for Odebrecht, I had dealings with these three professionals on matters which the judge recognises as deserving of protection. However, the Curitiba task force did not have the same care for such prerogatives when they were dealing with me. In fact it was quite the contrary, they criminalized my work as a lawyer and pressured me the whole time to obtain the same confidential information as judge Sergio Moro decided to protect.

More than two years ago I freely sought out the Lava Jato task force in Curitiba. I was with the prosecutors in person on three occasions. I did not at any time disclose any information of any client. In all the meetings, I was dealt with as someone who was judged and convicted and I was only not imprisoned. I have been a lawyer for more than 20 years. I looked at that situation and thought this can not be real. How can they convict me without due process, without evidence, without sentencing me? The prosecutors of the task force in Curitiba never wanted to listen to me, to know what I had to say or to give any opportunity to the defence. They always wielded the threat of preventive custody. It is humiliating to be accused of crimes one has not committed, to be offended and disqualified publicly.

In not giving me the chance of defence, judge Sergio Moro is completely ignoring the Constitution, the Organic Law of Magistracy, the Criminal Code, the Criminal Procedural Code, the Statute of Advocacy and the Statute of the Rights of Man of the Unite Nations. He even ignores the United States law, which He prizes so much, because there no-one is convicted without evidence and without the right to defence. Kant taught that legal action is unjust when it impedes the freedom of another and, in this specific case I am referring to the right to a full defence. Therefore no judge can adopt any conduct other than that provided for in the law, even if he disagrees with it. Injustice is a choice; and Justice is a duty. There are no shortcuts in the realm of the law. In order to convict someone, there must be an investigation, proof and defence. This makes for hard work and this takes time, but it is correct. In my case, no evidence has ever been produced against me, and an investigation in Spain has already been closed for lack of evidence.

There are grave facts not only concerning my right to defence, but also that of many others. The first of these is the disappearance of Inquiry 186/2016 from the São Paulo Federal Police. It has simply disappeared. Part of this inquiry was sent to the Commission of Inquiry into JBS at the time of my testimony. This inquiry is very important to my defence as it contains clarifications into the accusations laid against me. For two months my lawyers have tried to locate this inquiry. The Federal Police in São Paulo informed that they sent it to Curitiba. However, in Curitiba this inquiry does not exist because no-one knows where it is. The disappearance of the files belonging to the investigation is something very serious.

In my case, this is not the first time that such things have happened. Last year, I asked the Notary Office of the 1st Jurisdiction of Municipal Fiscal Executions of Curitiba for an object and standing certificate showing that the lawyer Carlos Zucolotto was acting as defence lawyer on legal suits involving my family. The Notary Office took about six months to issue the certificate and when they did so, it was done without the name of Carlos Zucolotto. After all this delay, the Notary Office informed that the power-of-attorney authorising the Zucolotto law firm had been taken from the case records without any written authorization from the judge and without any communication to the parties involved. A lawyer from my office received the information from the counter, or in other words, unofficially, that the power-of-attorney had been taken on the orders of Zucolotto himself. He alleged, according to the information, not having authorized the inclusion of this document in the case records. However, I have in my possession his authorization sent by e-mail. These very grave facts were omitted by the inspecting judge, who once aware of this, should have taken the steps to clarify this fact, because this is documentary evidence necessary for any motion of impediment or suspicion of judge Sergio Moro.

For four years we have been living with two judges, two Moros. The first has become a hero both in Brazil and abroad for his work in Operation Lava Jato and his intransigent posture in relation to corruption. He is celebrated in the salons of the United States and in the Principality of Monaco. The other is severely criticized by judges and lawyers unable to swallow the violation of rights, as in the case of phone-tapping the offices of the lawyer of ex-President Lula and of various search and seizure orders of law firms, including my own. He is also criticized by defenders of human rights both in Brazil and abroad for the practice of hindering the right to a defence and the politicization of criminal procedures in Brazil. This is the dark side of Sergio Moro.

The judge was irritated by me because He was obliged to inform the Federal Revenue Service Who the collaborators were in my office, and amongst those professionals providing services was the name of the lawyer Carlos Zucolotto, my correspondent in Curitiba. This professional relationship with Zucolotto has been going on long before any investigation into myself. I did not have the least idea that He was a friend and witness at the wedding of Moro. I was obliged to give this information to the Federal Revenue Service during the course of an audit of my office. This audit took two years and was twice extended. In the end, to inform the Federal Revenue Service concluded that I had not committed any tax or accounting irregularities, much less any crime.

Later on, in 2016, Zucolotto asked me for US$ 5 million in Exchange for his intermediation during negotiation of an agreement with the task force in Curitiba, whose contents were equivalent to a sentence for crimes I had not committed. Strangely, this uncomfortable truth was never investigated. However, recently charges of the sale of protection by other Curitiba lawyers have arisen, making the investigation essential in order to clarify any occurrence of influence trafficking, administrative advocacy or extortion.

Today, those who question the modus operandi of the task force in Curitiba in the production of serial plea bargains are considered an enemy of Lava Jato. I ask: are the lawyers who defend our rights, the rule of law and the legal guarantees enemies of Lava Jato and accomplices to corruption? Do we have to be accomplices to the brutality, to the overriding of laws and the diminishing of rights practiced by public servants? All this is very much like that which the writer Hannah Arendt defined as the banality of evil in writing about the judgement of Adolf Eichmann in 1961.

Operation Lava Jato has become a centre of political power, able to destroy reputations, companies and institutions. In reality, it is a kind of parallel power which for four years has influenced the conduction of politics and the economy of the country without any such mandate and jurisdiction to do so. They have pressured Congress, the Executive and the Federal Supreme Court, trodden on the constitutional rights of lawyers and criminalized the defence lawyers as if they were the only ones to have legitimacy and the monopoly over ethics and morals.

When I was called to testify for ex-President Lula, I became a target of attacks from some prosecutors of the task force in Curitiba and was publicly condemned. At that time, I understood that I would never be accepted as a witness, neither for ex-President Lula nor for President Michel Temer, where my name was cited in the Prosecution Service charges. I shall not serve as witness to anyone, because that is what Judge Sergio Moro and prosecutors of the task force wish. The Abuse of Authority Law was called the Gagging Law, but they do not have the least scruples when gagging witnesses able to threaten their arguments and strategies of accusation.

Despite never having been convicted and with my extradition being unanimously denied by Spanish Justice, Judge Sergio Moro offended me live on national television, on the programme Roda Viva. Without the least ceremony, He broke with the decorum required by article 36, sub-section 3 of the Organic Law of Magistracy, and prejudged me and convicted me. If he has not heard me, never given me the opportunity of a defence, nor even judged me, as he has no authority, nor the impartiality to do so, and he can not and must not, in regard to the law, make any judgement of value, pre-judge, defame and slander. He is the judge, not the prosecution.

Justice is a good of democratic societies and must be exercised with authority, never with authoritarianism. When a judge issues an opinion against someone who is a defendant in their court, this is prejudging and violates one of the most elementary principles of human rights, the right to an impartial technical judgement, without emotional ties of any kind. Sergio Moro prohibited me from testifying, but he can not stop me from speaking.

On Friday, 4th March 2016. Lula is coerced to testify at the Federal Police. As he had not refused to testify, coercion without any sense.

Judge Moro said he had decided on the coercion to “avoid tumult”. At that time, there was a large pro-impeachment demonstration set for nine days later: March 13th.

There are no coincidences. There are tactics and strategy, politics and communication. The judiciary and the media feeding off each other. The co-action stirred up the news, people and the demonstration.

Only now, four years, three months and 227 coercitive arrests after the Supreme Court has decide: coercitive arrests are prohibited for questioning…

… There are no coincidences. Lula is in prison, and, albeit late, there is now the risk of affecting friends, colleagues.

There are no coincidences. Three days after that 13th of March Moro leaked a conversation between Dilma and Lula. Dilma was not under investigation. Therefore it was illegal.

And the recording went on for one hour more than the legal time limit set.

In the Supreme Court, Justices Teori Zavaski and Marco Aurelio Mello clearly defined that such actions were illegal.

But the Supreme Court did not act. Once again things had to be stirred up. There were huge repercussions from the leak and the conversations… and the Supreme Court impeded Lula from becoming a cabinet minister.

As a cabinet minister, Lula would have legal immunity, he would have been the political operator on the eve of the impeachment. Without Lula, o month later and Dilma was impeached in the lower house of Congress.

Eleven months afterwards, in a similar situation, the same Supreme Court would maintain Moreira Franco as minister.

Times of facility for some, and very hard for others. Times of labelling people to try and classify those who oppose the herds. Many have given up.

The law firm working for Lula had their telephone tapped. The operator confirmed the phone taps, according to Sergio Rodas on the site Consultor Juridico (Conjur).

The then rapporteur for Lava Jato, Teori Zavaski, reprehended Moro, Said Conjur. Moro alleged not knowing about the phone taps and “promised to destroy the recordings”.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of The Net Projection.

By Emanuel Cancella

I am an admirer of the poet Gentileza and really believe that kindness (gentileza) generates kindness, but not with Judge Moro, who has led to countless losses for our justice system, the economy and democracy. And that is not trifling.

Judge Sergio Moro, who became famous by taking up the standard in the fight against corruption, ever more wallowing in the mud. His accomplices, such the Federal Supreme Court, are starting to abandon “Moro-Mania”, timidly.

The Federal Supreme Court prohibited the ‘forceful arrests’ that Moro used and abused, including against ex-President Lula. On the eve of voting on this authoritarian rubbish of forceful arrest, the jurist Técio Lins e Silva gave a strong performance in the plenary session of the Court.

Técio spoke of the embarrassment of taking an innocent Brazilian by force, as happened in the military dictatorship, to make a statement as Moro did with Lula, and with the journalist, Eduardo Guimarães, amongst others. Watch the entire defence by Técio in the STF, denouncing ‘forceful arrests’ (6).

Técio spoke of families who hired him professionally seeking redress to face this authoritarian rubbish that Moro used against innocent people, exposing them to ridicule, to being taken from their homes by the police.

Lava Jato, led by Moro, is accused by the Clube de Engenharia, Fiseng, Aepet, FUP and FNP of destroying the national engineering and shipbuilding industry (2 to 5). Lava Jato, as the fight against corruption, alleging overbilling, cancelled various projects, amongst them the Ceara and Maranhão refinery and halted the Comperj project.

Look, if someone really wanted to fight corruption, rather than sinking the country and favouring the competition abroad, they would have to punish the management, even imprison them, but they would keep the projects going, because in the end the ones who paid for all this were the workers. That is why Lava Jato is responsible for most of the 13 million unemployed.

Furthermore, Moro, in charge of Lava Jato, was an accomplice of the PSDB party in Petrobras. In November 2016, I denounced the omission of Lava Jato formally to the Federal Prosecution Service (MPF) in relation to the criminal management of Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Pedro Parente at Petrobras, with no response to this day. See the denunciation in full (7).

Besides the criminal support of the media, principally the Globo network, which gave an award to Moro, as well as an award from the Brazil-United States Chamber of Commerce. Perhaps it was payback, as Lava Jato, headed by Moro, was omissive too when the neoliberal PSDB party supporter and head of Petrobras, Pedro Parente, paid R$ 10 million to American shareholders, even without Petrobras having been found culpable (9,10).

On the ruling of Moro, the thieves at Petrobras are serving their time at home, in true leisure clubs, built with the money they stole, amongst others: the ex-director of Petrobras, Paulo Roberto Costa; Fernando Baiano, lobbyist for the PMDB; Sérgio Machado, ex-president of Transpetro, a subsidiary of Petrobras and the money-launderer Alberto Youssef. Astounding! Youssef is at home despite being convicted to 82 years and 8 months in prison (1).

To favour the thieves convicted in Lava Jato even further, Moro :

“Prohibited the use of evidence obtained in Operation Lava Jato against those who made plea bargains and companies that recognised the crimes and who came to collaborate with the prosecutors in the investigations, with the decision affecting the AGU (Federal Attorney-General), the CGU (Federal Comptroller-General), Cade (Administrative Economic Defence Council), the Central Bank, the Federal Revenue Service and the TCU (Federal Accounts Tribunal)” (12)

Moro, besides discrediting the justice system in our country, their practices are criticised even by Pope Francisco, who said in a sermon:

“Obscure conditions have been created to convict one person. The media start speaking badly about people, the people who run things; with slander and defamation of these people who have been stained. Then comes the Justice system, who convict them, and in the end, a coup is implemented” (Francisco)” (13).

To leave no doubt about the dissatisfaction with the justice system in Brazil and the imprisonment of Lula, the head of the Roman Catholic church also sent an emissary to Brazil, the country with the most Catholics in the world, to visit Lula, but who was barred from doing so, can you guess by whom? By Judge Sergio Moro!

I close with a declaration by Técio Lins e Silva to the STF, remembering the lawyer Sobral Pinto (6). Remembering, even though he was a conservative, Sobral Pinto defended the communist Senator Luis Carlos Prestes, imprisoned by the military dictatorship. According to Técio, at a certain time in a session of the Superior Military Tribunal, Sobral Pinto said: “I will denounce them to the country!” The president of the Military Tribunal then ordered him to be arrested. So I close with a message from the great Sobral Pinto to lawyers: “The law is not a profession for cowards!”

Judge rules on the seizure of the company’s assets, amongst them the famous apartment attributed to Lula in operation Lava Jato – translation of article found at Brasil de Fato

Judge Luciana Correa Tôrres de Oliveira, of the Second of Execution and Deeds Court in the Federal District, ruled on the seizure of OAS assets, notably including the asset of the triplex apartment which Lava Jato says belongs to ex-President Lula.

According to information on the blog of journalist Mino Pedrosa, this ruling goes against the investigation in Lava Jato about the Guarujá triplex. The legal action attends to a company seeking payment of debts against OAS Empreendimentos.

The business centre that was being built in the Federal District had a Specific Purpose Business contract, and the creditor company filed a legal suit for recovery of R$ 7.2 million corrected for inflation. The Judge admitted the claim and ruled on the judicial blocking of the accounts of OAS Empreendimentos, holding just R$ 10,000. The creditor company did a search of notary offices throughout Brazil and found four properties in Guarujá in the name of OAS Empreendimentos under one company taxpayer number (CNPJ).

Property deed for the triplex in the name of OAS, in the notary office for Guarujá São Paulo

To the surprise of the Brasília businessmen, one of the properties was the controversial triplex apartment in Guarujá, attributed to ex-President Lula. In Brasília, the Judge understood that the apartment in the Solaris Building, in Praia das Astúrias, in Guarujá, that the triplex which led to the conviction in the court of first instance of ex-President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, registered in the notary Office in the name of OAS Empreendimentos, could be seized in payment of debts contracted to OAS which is the de facto owner of the property.